Martyrdom
by merlinmercury
Summary: Sam thinks they've been together just because he's reached inside one crevice of her, when Lilith has been everywhere, has touched and worshipped and claimed every part of Ruby.


Lilith runs her fingers over Ruby's chest, slips them through the gaps she's rent in the flesh to stroke her bones, her stomach, her kidneys. Ruby breathes hard, but with Lilith she knows better than to squeal.

"You've done so well," Lilith purrs. "So well."

It doesn't matter what Ruby says, so she says nothing—saves her words for Sam Winchester, who pretends to fight them but eats them up all the same. Eats her up, so that he can be strong enough for Lucifer.

"But you know I can't stand by and watch you with someone else, not without taking my own back every once in a while."

Lilith scrapes a nail down Ruby's cheek, where silent tears have dried tacky, pulling at the skin. It's not enough to break the skin, just enough to leave a red welt, another tiny claim on her. Lilith doesn't need to worry, doesn't need to feel threatened by some human, no matter how important Sam is to Lucifer's success. To Ruby, he is only a tool—and while he thinks _he_ is using _her_, he is wrong. He'll kill her, probably, when he finds out—but by then it will be too late; she will have won.

They will have won, she and Lilith both.

But they will also have lost.

Ruby nods. "Do whatever you need to do, babe," she gasps.

Lilith's hands tighten on her waist, bruising, crushing, fracturing bone, but still Ruby wishes she would hold her tighter. She wishes that they didn't have to spend this time apart; this, the final chapter in both of their stories. She wishes that she didn't have to know that her last words to Lilith will be ones of spite, as she orders Sam to kill her. Sam, who thinks they've been together just because he's reached inside one crevice of her, when Lilith has been _everywhere_, has touched and worshipped and claimed _every_ part of her.

"You'll tell him that I punished you," Lilith says, tone unreadable.

"Yeah."

Lilith is quiet for a long second, and Ruby knows that this is when she is most dangerous. Lilith always knows what she wants; is never hesitant to express it or command it or pry it from some other fucker's hands while they haemorrhage in the dirt.

She hears her own breathing grow shallower still, not just to temper the pain but also to hold the anticipation in.

Lilith leans down, blows heat against Ruby's face. The whispers of it dance over her lips like flames, are pulled in through her nose by the shallow heave and pant of her breaths. She strains upwards, trying to steal a taste, but Lilith holds her down with invisible bonds, chains of raw power that remind Ruby just who Lilith is, just how magnificent a demon has chosen to love her. Ruby would groan, but with Lilith she knows better than to make a sound.

Lilith stays, tauntingly close but still just too far for Ruby's lips to reach, so she unfurls her tongue and reaches out that way instead, the very tip just managing to make contact. Lilith laughs, a deep sound, nothing like the way she giggles in the bodies of her younger meat suits. It's soft and dangerous and makes Ruby feel like her whole body is coiling tight, like her spine is wrapping her up from the inside.

"Don't be quiet," Lilith murmurs.

Ruby stills. Never has Lilith wanted to hear her. She has always loved how far she could push without shaking Ruby's control—further than anyone else could, further than Ruby herself would ever have expected. She loves that even when Ruby mewls and grunts under Alistair's knife, she can be silent through anything for Lilith, because Lilith is worth everything she has ever had and more, and Lilith is the only thing that can anchor her so tightly that she can fight the need to scream no matter how desperate she gets.

She would question the instruction, but Lilith is not to be questioned.

Ruby lets a long moan roll free from her throat.

Lilith wrenches her ribcage apart.

The shriek fills the air before Ruby gives it permission to—but Lilith's was the only permission it really needed. The sound is bright and jagged like lightning, and Lilith follows with a rumble of approval, thunderous in Ruby's ears as the blood pounds frantically through her.

Lilith raises one bloody hand to her mouth and licks her fingers clean one by one.

"He gets to taste you," she says, the white of her eyes burning, making Ruby burn all over.

"You know he has to," Ruby replies. Lilith does, they both do, but that doesn't fix the fact that Ruby is spending her last nights amongst the mouldy motel bed sheets of Sam Winchester, and Lilith is spending hers with a horde of demon guards who don't know how to follow her the way Ruby does, don't know how to cherish her.

Lilith launches forwards and finally takes Ruby's lips between her own. It knocks the breath out of her in one surprised squeak, and the shallow huffs she's able to take in through her nose aren't enough. She can't separate the burning on the inside of her lungs from the burning on the outside where she's gaping and bloody and raw, but she can see the fuzzy spots gathering in her vision.

"I do," Lilith says, breaking away just in time. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."

Ruby's head spins, but she keeps trying to focus her eyes on the figure swimming up above her, needing to drink in and savour every inch of it before the opportunities run out.

Lilith's death will be a victory; martyrdom; the beginning of Lucifer's reign—but even victory can be terrifying. Great things are to be feared; as Lilith fears Lucifer, so she will give herself up for Him—and so, as Ruby fears Lilith, she will do the same.


End file.
